1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method and system of utilizing a secondary telephone line service, and in one embodiment encompasses analyzing a dialing sequence to convert from utilizing the secondary telephone line service to utilizing a primary telephone line service without the use of a manual override.
2. Discussion of the Background
Most customers are used to utilizing the plain old telephone service (POTS). However, a number of new communications services are becoming available that increase the number of telephone line services available at residential and commercial premises. Two such services are Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and Voice over IP (VoIP). Typically those services are unable to provide certain enhanced features (such as emergency dialing (911 services) and informational services (411)) because they are not connected to the POTS network that has traditionally been used to receive such calls. Known ISDN systems, therefore, include a manual switch that overrides the use of the ISDN system in favor of the POTS system (for emergency dialing or dialing in the case of a loss of power). However, such manual switches require physical access to the switch in order to perform the override function.
Emergency services are often time critical; accordingly, known systems include the ability to monitor phone calls to determine if a series of dialed digits represent an emergency call that requires extra processing. In one such system, when an emergency call is detected, the system flashes a porch light to better identify the house to the arriving emergency crew.